Aircraft designed to fly off aircraft carriers have wings that are designed to fold up when the aircraft is not in use on the carrier. The folding wings significantly decrease the space required to store the aircraft. This allows the aircraft carrier to support more aircraft. Unfortunately, the hinges where the wings fold have gaps that reduce the performance of these aircraft. The gaps in the wings allow air slippage from the high pressure side of the wing to the low pressure side of the wing. One solution has been to add blade seals. A blade seal is a metal plate that overlaps the gap. The blade seal cannot be fixed to both sides of the gap or the wing will no longer fold. As are result, blade seals still allow air slippage.
Another problem faced by aircraft designers is the need to eliminate the gap that is created by a movable wing tip.
Thus there exists a need for a folding wing for an aircraft that reduces the air slippage and a movable wing tip that does not have a gap.